Re: No Y2k Bug

[Richard <richard_snook@primus.com.au>]

The true issue is who is going to take the Media to task for scare -mongering...not whether there was a problem to be
fixed, or whether there were indeed serious issues with onflowing consequences.
As recently as 2 years ago it was found that 65-70% of monitoring equipment in hospitals would either fail outright or
give such erroneous service that that was almost more dangerous than stopping altogether.Some needed ..a fix...other
equipment needed replacing (but then it had needed replacing for year s anyway)
Those who worked inthis Y2K industry breathed a huge collective sigh when Telstra finally and very late in the day
announced that testing had been completed and that "they" expected the phones to ring and outlined the fall back
contingency services that would operate should unforseen complication bite....keep in mind that without communications
these days you are stuffed!!
Power in this country was never a mjor concern , in that the overseeing industry group gerally did their job well... Now
the water industry  had to do some serious catch up.
Only older systems!!!  Even some pcs as young as three years old were found to be non compliant in their native state,
MS WindowsNT out of the box was non-coompliant. It didnt set itself up natively to be 2000ready..you had to reconfigure
it.
Sone banks were not guaranteeing their ATMs as they were not sure.

Its a shame that the bug didnt strike the media...that would have been true justice. Now they are trying to divert blame
for the hysteria to the IT industry accusing  the experts of a HOAX.
It was no hoax but a problem that was attended to in the most place with much dedication and obvious success.

To those who think some got paid ridiculous amounts (I wasnt)  a lot came down to who was prepared to stick their
neckout and do the job....the axes were well poised should things have failed. Many, many  many long hours were worked
out of normal times (so as not to disrupt "business as usual"). Some guys did ridiculously well ...such is life.

The fat lady hasnt started singing yet...it isnt quite into the safe zone...though it does look very encouraging. Until
business starts interacting again the realtest has not happened. The infinite permutation of live interaction could
never be tested...now it is about to be!! Armageddon..NO....some frustrating niggly hiccoughs...time will tell!!


cheers >:~)) Richard



David McLoughlin wrote:
> 
> Daniel Bowen wrote:
> 
> > The fact that virtually nothing has happened actually goes to show that most
> > of the governments and companies involved did take the time and spend the
> > money to fix it.
> 
> I am not saying that systems did not need checking and in some cases
> updating, especially older ones. What I am going on about is the media
> hype which claimed power, phones, the Internet, water supplies, ATMs,
> aircraft, hospitals and all kinds of other places, machines and
> infrastructure were going to fail at midnight, causing international
> chaos and Armageddon for good measure due to the launch of Russia's
> ICBMs.
> 
> The news media needs to be brought to account for promoting this
> fantasy.
> 
> My morning paper today is trying to slide out of the doomsday stories it
> was running only last week with a story trying to say "it still could
> happen..."
> 
> David McLoughlin
> Auckland New Zealand